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Discussion Shipping packages to US / American addresses near BC for pick up or forwarding

Got this email about TLC closing down in Point Roberts due to a lease issue. They are planning to reopen in Blaine.

Dear Valued Customers

It is critical that you read this entire letter for important dates regarding this announcement.

We regret to inform you that The Letter Carrier will be closing its doors for good on Thursday August 28th. We will stop receiving packages on Saturday August 16th. Any delivery attempts after August 16th will be refused at our facility and will most likely be returned to the sender. This includes all carriers UPS, FedEx and USPS. All packages that are in our facility will be available for pickup during our normal business hours up until Thursday August 28th. Any packages left in our facility after close of business August 28th will either be returned to the sender or turned over to TSB Shipping on Gulf road. Those packages will be subject to TSB Shipping's terms and conditions and policies.

As much as we would like to continue operating in Point Roberts we were unwilling to purchase the building we were in due to what in our opinion was the horrendous condition of the building. We could not justify spending that amount of money on a building that had been infested with rats the last five years. Although there was an exterminator coming out on a regular basis we literally had rats drag some of the packages off the shelf and chewed into boxes that contained clothing and eaten parts of the clothes. The constant roof leaks which would keep recurring and which may have caused the electric panel to keep popping a breaker was the final straw in this decision. We are of the opinion that there could be a lot of damage done to our customers packages under these circumstances and are unwilling to continue to risk that outcome.

Since the person who did purchase the building has not, to our knowledge, resolved any of these issues and does not seem interested in renewing our lease we have no choice but to close our doors.

We are currently negotiating a location in Blaine. We cannot provide an address for that location until a lease is signed. We expect to open this new location October 1st. If you are interested in using our services at our new Blaine facility you will need to indicate so by clicking on this link Registration Transfer and filling out the form which only requires your name, email address and phone number. Your current registration information will then be transferred over and you will be emailed the new shipping address for that facility once the lease is signed.

We recommend that if you wish to continue receiving packages in Point Roberts that you begin using one of the following services:
TSB Shipping Plus
Point to Point Parcel

Considering that we have over 10000 active customers we realize that there will be a large increase in phone calls as a result of this letter. We will not be able to answer every call since this would result in out failing to provide the service you have come to expect as we wind down our operation. We will do the best we can with the phones.

In closing we want to thank all our loyal customers who helped make our company a success. If someone should reach out to you and tell you that we have reopened in Point Roberts please be aware that it is not true, I can assure you that we will never operate out of this Point Roberts address again after August 28th.

which ones have no annual fee? also, any personal experiences with these companies and how reliable they are? i'm a bit reluctant to ship purchases to some random company to hold. i'm planning to order a $700 phone.

Wow!! I love this thread!! I frequently bemoan Canada Post's high shipping fees relative to the U.S. and the great online deals that I cannot take advantage of because they will not ship beyond the USA's borders! I'll definitely consider one of these methods the next time that I encounter that scenario!

The thing is, people in other countries would find it ridiculous having to go pick up their parcels in another country. I hate having to go down to Point Roberts just to use Amazon.com or whatever. The e-commerce scene in Canada seems to be slowly getting better, but there are still quite a few annoying aspects.

Online cross border shopping can be a hassle for Canadians. Often a deal may be exclusive to addresses in the States or a seller might only ship by UPS. There's nothing wrong with UPS if you live in the States, but it means huge brokerage fees for Canadians.

A good way to get around that is to have the item shipped to a location in the States. Some people have friends that can do this for them, but for everybody else there are a lot of companies in border towns near British Columbia (most are ~45 minutes away from Vancouver) like Blaine and Point Roberts that offer a mail, package & parcel forwarding and pick up service. They do charge a fee ($1-5 dollars the last time I checked) for receiving your package.

Each company will have their own procedure to follow, but it's generally something along the line of shipping your package to the company using your name, customer number or phone number. They'll inform you when the package is received and you can pick it up at your leisure. There are fees associated with holding the package for longer periods of time. You can also arrange for them to forward your mail to your address in Canada.

Recently I had to select a package receiving service close to Vancouver. There were so many and the choices so bewildering that I ended up compiling a spreadsheet of every company I could find. I put so much time into this that I'm hoping someone else gets some use out of it, else an entire day of my life (like too many others) would have nothing to show for it.

So, here is that spreadsheet. It compares most of the shipping / receiving / mailbox companies close to Vanocuver (in Point Roberts, WA and Blaine, WA):

Ship happens - what a funny name, yes actually our customers use it for years to avoid charges with UPS. If you decide to ship to Canadian address - there are actually many online services that ou can use for free to calculate the total amount of additional fees, taxes, brokerage etc.

Does anyone know of any service or person that would be willing to pop over the border in Sumas, Washington and drive a package sitting at Package Express and drop off at a Canada Post in Abbotsford? I would print a pre-paid shipping label from Abbotsford to Calgary, where I am.

The problem is Package Express won't ship the package over the US border because it contains a lithium-ion battery for a laptop, and it's become just too complicated due to the amount of paperwork now required, as of Jan. 1, 2017. Our over-zealous regulators are making life extremely difficult for anything lithium-ion related.